Today we continue our summer sermon series, taking an in-depth look at some of your favorite hymns and songs – their history, their words, their music, and the stories and theology behind them.
As we approach our Independence Day celebrations this week, it’s no coincidence that we’re diving deep into a hymn that rose out of the question: what kind of nation are we going to be?
The Battle Hymn of the Republic is filled to overflowing with references to apocalyptic Bible passages, found everywhere from Genesis to Revelation.
We’re going to hear a couple of Scripture passages this morning – one from Revelation, and the other from the gospel according to Matthew. Hang in there, it will make sense later.
Scripture: Matthew 25:31-46
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world, for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’
Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.’
Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You who are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment but the righteous into eternal life.”
Some songs bring a nation together – the national anthem, America the Beautiful. A couple weeks ago, there were hundreds of soccer fans screaming the chorus to ‘Sweet Caroline’ at the top of their lungs after the US men’s team won their first World Cup tournament game.
But what do you sing when your nation is tearing itself apart?
The Battle Hymn of the Republic was written for one of those times. Our nation was at war with itself, deciding whether we would be one nation or two or many. Not only was the nation divided, but loyalties split families, communities, churches and denominations, and created deep wounds that still ache today.
If you remember your US history class from high school, you may remember the story of radical abolitionist John Brown, who in 1859 led 21 people on a raid at an armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia. He was attempting to gain control of the weapons there so that he could lead a revolt of enslaved people, overturning the government that allowed their slavery.
He was not successful. Nevertheless, he became a folk hero to many in the north and the subject of a song.
John Brown’s body lies a-molderin’ in the grave (x3)
But his soul goes marching on!
In April 1861, the Civil War began when Confederate troops fired at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
7 months later, in November 1861, abolitionist Julia Ward Howe and her husband were invited to Washington, DC to attend a public review of the troops. While they marched by, she heard them belting out one of their favorite marching songs: “John Brown’s Body.”
A preacher standing with them asked Howe, who was a published poet and playwright, if she could perhaps find some…more encouraging words to go with the song. She replied that she had wanted to for a while, but couldn’t find the words.
She later wrote to a friend:
“I… awoke the next morning in the gray of the early dawn, and to my astonishment found that the wished-for lines were arranging themselves in my brain. I lay quite still until the last verse had completed itself in my thoughts, then hastily arose, saying to myself, I shall lose this if I don’t write it down immediately. I… began to scrawl the lines almost without looking…. Having completed this, I lay down again and fell asleep, but not before feeling that something of importance had happened to me.”
In February 1862, she published those words for the first time in a magazine called ‘Atlantic Monthly’, and was paid precisely $5 for them.
The new song was called ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic.’
The Union troops and their supporters loved it, and quickly adopted the new words as an anthem of their struggle, their fight.
The lyrics pick up apocalyptic imagery from all over Scripture, but especially from the Old Testament prophets and the Book of Revelation. But without going into all the footnotes, the general theme is simple: ‘this war is God’s righteous judgment against the Confederate States of America.’
The Confederacy had a problem with that, because they believed that THEY were the righteous ones, defending the God-ordained right to slavery. Thus, they hated this new marching song, because it painted them not just as enemies of a political entity called the United States of America, but enemies of God.
And this is where things get a little theologically tricky.
There is a very, very fine line between condemning purposeful and willful acts of evil, reminding God’s people that we will have to answer to God for the way we treat one another – and saying “my army is going to conquer your army in the name of Jesus, because you deserve God’s wrath.”
Here’s the hard part: there are instances in scripture where God’s people come to believe that geopolitical realities – like the conquering army of Babylon – are instruments of God’s will. That God uses human violence as a vehicle for God’s wrath.
But just because it’s biblical does not mean it’s Christlike.
There is a difference between saying ‘God will judge us all,’ which is what Jesus is doing in Matthew 25, and saying ‘God has appointed me to crush you because you’re the worst.’ That is not how Jesus operates.
That’s why, for me, this hymn is a ‘handle with care’ song – because without that original context, it could very easily lead us down either path. Outside of that context, it can be used to justify any kind of violence as a ‘holy war,’ and that is not how Jesus operates.
This is why our hymnal, the one we’re about to sing from, has edited the song a bit to help push us in a better direction.
Some of those edits are just for the sake of clearer and more inclusive language. While Howe originally wrote five verses, we have kept three. But there’s one change that I want to point out, because it’s important.
In the original, the final verse goes like this:
In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
while God is marching on.
Those lyrics make sense as words written by abolitionists for the troops literally marching off to war. But our hymnals, along with many others, have adjusted that last line to help us move out of a wartime mindset and into a life of justice and love.
It now reads:
As he died to make us holy,
let us live to make all free,
While God is marching on.
It’s a small change, but it’s a significant one – reminding us that our lives, the care and compassion we offer, the justice we struggle toward, the impacts we make, are important. What we do with our everyday lives matters. The choices we make matter – they matter for the good of this world and the people in it, and they matter to God.
The Battle Hymn of the Republic is not a perfect hymn, but it is a phenomenal example of the ways we continue to struggle toward the ideals that our nation was founded on –equality, freedom, and justice. We have not arrived. There is still so much work to be done.
The circumstances and the words will change, and we may make different choices than our ancestors – but the point is not that we get it perfect. Our goal is not to arrive at a world that will never need to change.
The point is that we keep struggling, that we keep using our gifts to do what we can right here and right now, that we continue to live to make all free.
Glory, hallelujah, indeed.
Let’s sing together, the Battle Hymn of the Republic – #354.